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Witness saw Regeni in Cairo police station before murder

January 28, 2021 at 12:47 pm

Candlelight procession for Italian student Giulio Regeni who was murdered in Egypt on 25 January 2018 [Antonio Masiello/Getty Images]

A testimony obtained by Italian prosecutors reveals how a witness saw Giulio Regeni in a police station in Cairo before he was found murdered by the roadside in January 2016, reports the Guardian.

The witness said that the security officials acted as though they were above the law and said that he overheard conversations between them over tampering with Regeni’s phone.

Last week, Rome’s public prosecutor requested legal action be taken against four National Security Agency officers who are accused of torturing and murdering Regeni.

In January 2016 the PhD student’s body was found dumped by the roadside. He had been living in Cairo and researching independent trade unions.

The Italian authorities identified five suspects in 2018, who were working for the Egyptian General Intelligence Service.

The Italian public prosecution dismissed charges against one of the suspects, concluding that the victim died due to respiratory failure caused by blows inflicted on him.

In total, three witnesses codenamed Delta, Epsilon and Gamma have given testimony on Regeni, from his arrival at the police station to his journey to a detention facility in Dokki where he was tortured.

READ: 18 days

Gamma has said Major Magdi Ibrahim Sharif of the NSA, one of the accused, was overheard at a conference in Nairobi saying:

We thought he was an English spy, we took him, I went and after loading him in the car we had to beat him.

Delta said he saw Regeni being transported to Dokki: “A man was brought in around 8pm or 9pm. He spoke in Italian and asked to speak to a lawyer and to the consulate. Only later, after I saw the photos on the internet, I understood that it was Giulio Regeni.”

Security officers instructed that Regeni be kept in the fridge, the state security investigation room.

Delta also overheard a conversation in which it transpired the officers had turned off Regeni’s mobile phone so that the student’s last location couldn’t be pinpointed.

Italian prosecutors said that Delta was a credible source.

Epsilon told prosecutors he saw Regeni inside the NSA and Interior Ministry headquarters, naked from the waist upwards with torture marks on his torso and speaking Italian.

Egypt has consistently refused to cooperate on the investigation and tried to close it down based on what it said was a failure to identify the perpetrator.

Giulio Regeni - Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]

Giulio Regeni – Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]